Introductions and overviews will launch the first day (Saturday) of the 2022 AAS workshop, followed by a detailed examination of the UV and IR astronomical research programs that autonomous constellations of modest-aperture space telescopes could support and enhance. The final session of the first day will explore potential advances in UV and IR sensor technologies that could extend the wavelength coverage and sensitivity of future telescopes. A workshop banquet is planned for that evening.

The second day (Sunday) will begin with a detailed consideration of autonomous operation, not only of the spacecraft themselves, but also autonomous scheduling of observations in coordination with other space and ground telescopes, as well as downloading, preprocessing, and distribution of the data. All observations would be archived and made available to the public after an appropriate delay.

The workshop will then consider the non-astronomical aspects of these constellations of space telescopes—including buses, launch, and communications—with the goal of reducing costs to the point where telescope time will not only be available to professional astronomers and their graduate students but also to undergraduate and high school students as well as citizen scientists for well-planned research projects with published results. Just as highly economical autonomous operation of networks of ground-based telescopes, such as Las Cumbres Observatory and Skynet, has fostered student and citizen science research, economical autonomous constellations of UV and IR CubeSat and SmallSat telescopes should foster student and citizen science research, helping to “democratize” space. The final session will consider how academic, governmental, and industrial organizations could work together to make these space telescope constellations a reality. The final session will be followed by the AAS evening reception.